Wharton Esherick Museum

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Malvern, PA
Wharton Esherick Museum

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Home & Studio of artist Wharton Esherick (1887-1970)
National Historic Landmark for Architecture
Studio Tours by reservation March through December

Please note: Visitors MUST HAVE ADVANCE RESERVATIONS to tour the site. We offer multiple tour experiences. An Experiencing Esherick visit emphasizes a sense of place and integrity of materials, thinking broadly about Esherick’s legacy in the fields of art, craft, design, and architecture, and fostering a deep connection to the singular nature of the Studio. An Esherick and Architecture tour will lead you through the Museum’s upper campus, which is recognized as a National Historic Landmark for Architecture. The tour focuses on two experimental buildings: the Esherick Studio (1926-1966) and the 1956 Workshop (1956). Book your reservation online: www.whartonesherickmuseum.org
Book over the phone: 610-644-5822

If you have questions please email [email protected] or call 610-644-5822. Walk-ins will NOT be accommodated. Become a member and your entry is always free! Advance reservations are still required. Membership levels vary. AAM and National Trust member discounts are honored.

10/28/2026

Frocin returns once more for a spooky . We wish everyone a safe and happy halloween weekend!

"Frocin II"
for Tristran and Iseult
1931
4 in x 4 in
Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick Museum Collection

10/27/2026

For WEM's 33rd annual juried woodworking exhibition, Design for Living, we are reframing Esherick's legacy through the lens of design. We invite contemporary makers to explore the relationships between people, objects, and the spaces they inhabit.

Theme: Design for Living
Deadline to Apply: January 10, 2027
Learn more: https://whartonesherickmuseum.org/open-call/33rd-annual-juried-woodworking-exhibition

How can creative work emerge from the realities of everyday life, including from the specific needs, desires, and experiences of those who live with art, craft, and design objects?

How might an object change when it is designed with a particular body, place, or way of life in mind? How does your work respond to the realities of everyday life, or how might it help us envision new ways of living in the future?

Guest jurors: We are excited to have Jermaine Jenkins (), Director of Development and Strategic Partnerships at the American Institute of Architects, Philadelphia Chapter and DesignPhiladelphia and Sarah Darro (), Chief Curator and Exhibitions Director at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, as guest jurors for this year's exhibition!

10/25/2026

There are just over two months left in the year! We can't believe it either.

We'd love to show you around Esherick's Studio before 2026 comes to a close. If you've never visited WEM, here are some things to know as you plan:

• We offer guided tours on Wednesdays-Sundays (3-4 per day)
• To enter the building, you must reserve a tour ticket in advance
• We offer three types of tours: Experiencing Esherick, Topic Tour: Esherick, and Architecture, and Mortar Between the Stones Tour: Stories of the Studio
• Tours often sell out 2-3 weeks in advance
• The museum is closed January & February each year

Visit our website for more about our tours, a realtime calendar of ticket availability and tour dates, and all the details for visiting us:
https://whartonesherickmuseum.org/visiting-info

10/22/2026

What are you up to this afternoon? Care to sneak away from life to experience Esherick's Studio through a new lens?

Our Mortar Between the Stone tour offers first-time and repeat visitors an in-depth look at Esherick’s Home and Studio with WEM staff, plus behind-the-scenes access to recorded stories and accounts from the Museum’s special collections. This sensory experience draws on WEM’s rich collection of oral history interviews, giving visitors the opportunity to hear stories told by Esherick and the friends, family members, collaborators, and clients who helped build the hillside into what it is today.

There are only two of these tours left for the year! Learn more and grab the last tickets to hop on the Mortar Between the Stones tour today.

https://whartonesherickmuseum.org/tours/the-mortar-between-the-stones-stories-of-the-studio

10/21/2026

Spooky season calls for a fitting . Enter Frocin. Esherick often documented theater scenes in his woodcuts but, this character from the play Tristan and Iseult is by far the spookiest.

"Prologue - Frocin"
1931
5-1/2 in x 4-1/2 in
Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick Museum Collection

10/19/2026

🪑 TOMORROW! Don't miss Spotlight Talk: Interpreting the Chair. Join us for a conversation about how WEM’s current Artist-in-Residence, Jennifer Johnson, interpreted Esherick’s chairs through new artworks created for her exhibition "All the Time in the World."

Tuesday (10/20) at 12 PM
Free & virtual -- https://whartonesherickmuseum.org/event/spotlight-talk-interpreting-the-chair

WEM curators, Emily Zilber and Holly Gore, will explore Johnson’s practice of observation, documentation, and creation, both on campus and in her studio, and connect her approach to Esherick’s own practice of revisiting and transforming his chair designs — including for well-known objects like the Hammer Handle and SK Chairs — throughout his career.

Pictured:
Jennifer Johnson, Five Views of the Hammer Handle Chair, 2026.
Wharton Esherick, Hammer Handle Chair, 1938.

10/16/2026

This month, WEM staff Paul Deichman and Holly Gore sat down to talk about the story-driven tour of the Esherick Studio that Deichman co-designed: “The Mortar Between the Stones: Stories of the Studio.”

HG: Is there a particular moment that you would point to as being particularly vivid?

PD: There are several stories that have crept their way into all the tours I give because they have become so fundamental to me. We’re sitting right now in the Studio dining room. Wharton used scrap wood to make this incredible mosaic of a floor. There’s a story about how that affected his lumber supplier–seeing the result, realizing who he was dealing with, and what this guy could do with material.

Read more about Paul, the stories that fill Esherick's Studio, and the Mortar Between the Stones tour in our most recent blog post:
https://whartonesherickmuseum.org/storytelling-at-wem-a-conversation-with-paul-deichman

Pictured:
Guests enjoying the stories of the Studio with Paul Deichman.
Wharton and Miriam relaxing with friends at the Studio, circa 1956-1966.

10/14/2026

Chair fans, our upcoming Spotlight Talk: Interpreting the Chair (and this ) are for you! Let's admire chairs in every medium together.

Join us on Tuesday (10/20) for a free, virtual conversation about how WEM’s current Artist-in-Residence, Jennifer Johnson, interpreted Esherick’s chairs through new artworks created for her exhibition All the Time in the World.

Register here- https://whartonesherickmuseum.org/event/spotlight-talk-interpreting-the-chair

"Last Chips From an Old Block"
for Emily Clark’s book Stuffed Peacocks
1927
Height
2-1/2 in x 2-1/2 in
Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick Museum Collection

10/12/2026

Join us for a talk with Jennifer Johnson, WEM’s 2026 Artist-in-Residence, about her current exhibition at WEM, All the Time in the World!

📅 Saturday November 14th
🕑 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
🎟 Reserve your ticket - www.whartonesherickmuseum.org/event/jennifer-johnson-artist-talk

Johnson will be in conversation about her new body of work created during the residency with WEM’s curator Emily Zilber, and will discuss how she charted connections between the architecture and landscape of WEM’s campus, WEM’s collections, and Esherick’s story. Johnson’s new body of work in clay highlights the ways that buildings and the things they contain record histories, reveal lived experiences, and embody creative labor.

Image: Jennifer Johnson, Studio from the East on Electric Blue, 2026. Photography by Constance Mensh.

10/11/2026

The next time you visit Esherick's Studio, don't forget to check out the window sills!

On the sill of the big frosted glass window in the Studio, there sits a collection of mostly unfinished carvings, models, and wood scraps. In the far corner, though, rests a few chunks of wood largely devoured by termites. After discovering the bugs when digging for access beneath a proposed new floor, Esherick continued to dig to remove them and set aside portions to display as the termites own sculptures 🐜🐜🐜

Address

1520 Horseshoe Trl
Malvern, PA
19355

Telephone

+16106445822

Website

http://www.whartonesherickmuseum.org/

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